Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers has revealed that winger Scott Sinclair forced his move from Aston Villa in order to become a first team player at the Scottish club.

The former Chelsea winger has a good relationship withRodgers. In order to link up with the former Swansea manager, Sinclair literally begged Villa to allow a £ 3.5 million move to go through. Sinclair has become one of the important signings at Celtic in the summer. He played a major role in the win over Hearts, as Celtic began their title defence with a victory.

After having managed to secure their place in the next round of the Champions League qualification, Celtic have turned their attention back to the Premier league. The victory over Hearts gives them confidence going into the League Cup match against Motherwell. Games against Inter Milan in the International Champions Cup may be seen as a distraction by other clubs, but Rodgers is seeing this game as a great opportunity to test his second string team. Rodgers revealed that Villa were not ready to sell Sinclair since they saw him as one of the quality players meant for the Championship. However, Sinclair’s overwhelming urge to get reunited with Rodgers proved key.

“Aston Villa didn’t really want to lose the player, but Scott made it clear he wanted to leave.Roberto di Matteo’s situation, I respect and understand.He has a player that wants to move, but also a player he knows could go a long way to getting out of the Championship.Scott was very clear he wanted to come here, come in and enjoy his football again.Thankfully we got him for reasons like today when you see he is such an important player,” said Rodgers. Sinclair went on to score the winner against Hearts after coming off the bench.